The Discovery Channel series follows the exploits of a gang that supposedly operates within Amish society in Lancaster County, primarily centered on the power battles between Lancaster don Lebanon Levi and wannabe usurper Merlin. Whether you love or hate the show, you can't deny its ability to generate headlines and conversations.

Or the fact that it's the only program on television you are likely to see a "Pimp Your Buggy" competition or multiple exploding Santa Clauses (and buggies, for that matter).

"Amish Mafia" has truly been a Newsmaker of the Year, dominating headlines since it premiered on Dec. 12, 2012. It spent 2013 gaining fans and spawning two seasons and multiple specials.

The show is one of the higher-rated shows for Discovery Channel according to Laurie Goldberg, executive vice president for public relations for the network, and is doing well competitively too. In January, it delivered 3.27 million viewers per episode and was the No. 2 cable program on Wednesday evenings, not including sports, among people ages 24-54. The show's second season has averaged 2.49 million viewers per premiere telecast, Goldberg said.

Before the show even aired, people were talking about it. Amish experts denounced the reality of such a program.

“When I first saw the trailer [for the show], I thought maybe it was a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit on reality television because it was so far fetched,” Messiah College's David Weaver-Zercher told PennLive in December 2012. “My sense is this Amish mafia is about as real as the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in ‘The Office.’”

Even national news sites could not resist the allure of "Amish Mafia," a show whose title seems to contradict itself. ABC's "Nightline" ran a story on the program and interviewed several members of the show's cast about their Amish past and activities on the show.

Not all the stories were devoted to the show's success or its controversial nature, either. The cast members themselves were getting in legal trouble, with star Alan Beiler going to trial and serving time in Perry County for a high speed police chase and drug possession.

Lebanon Levi Stoltzfus has taken a different route, making news for his charity work (he helped raise more than $5,000 for the Matthews Public Library in Fredericksburg.)

If you bring up "Amish Mafia" in a room, however, you are unlikely to be thrust into a discussion about the importance of reading or the problems of domestic violence in the midstate. What you'll hear about is the reality of it all or about whether it is, by nature, offensive. When it comes to "Amish Mafia," everyone appears to have strong opinions about it.

"The reality of the show is very entertaining, but it does not really show the reality [of] what the Amish are in Lancaster County or Pennsylvania for that matter," Strasburg Police Chief Steven Echternach told PennLive in November. "It's good for tourism, that's great. But the reality is [the Amish are] not being depicted as the people that they are."

"They're very nonviolent, very quiet folks. They have issues just like any English group would have," he went on. "But I feel the culture is being exploited for a television show."

The show itself blurs the line of fact and fiction, often pulling from real, documented events for plot points - including Beiler's imprisonment. Never portrayed as absolute reality (its premiere episode included a graphic that read “Recreations are based on eye witness accounts, testimonials and the legend of the Amish mafia"), the show has a cast that is not Amish in the traditional sense - not one of them has been baptized in the Amish church.

Lancaster lawyer Steven Breit who represents several cast members and has appeared on the show, maintains that that should not discredit them.

"So some of them have not been baptized and if that's the true mark of an Amish person then no, they're not truly Amish," he told PennLive in November. "But they've been in the community, they grew up in the community, they know the community, so they are, in my opinion, Amish people."

Then there are the fact that some of the shops depicted as paying Lebanon Levi money for protection have done no such thing. A trailer fire alleged to have been caused by Merlin in the show was actually a planned event by Stoltzfus, who obtained approval to burn the trailer from the Richland Borough Council. The Lancaster County Police, the chief arresting force in the "Amish Mafia" realm, also does not actually exist (it's the Lancaster City Bureau of Police).

Regardless of the show's "reality" status, it has already been proven a hit and will have a third season premiere in February 2014. As to whether the show will continue to be a newsmaker in the new year, that's up for debate.

But you can rest assured - the battle between Merlin and Lebanon Levi is far from over.

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